Is Soros The Source Of Funds Behind The "Muslim Ban" Lawsuits?

More than a dozen lawsuits and counting have been filed against President Donald Trump’s executive order that temporarily blocks visas from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. As of last Friday, one such lawsuit heard by Federal District Judge James Robart, a Bush appointee, in Seattle effectively blocked the enforcement of the executive order nationwide (see here for details: "Judge Blocks Trump Travel Ban Nationwide; White House Vows To Challenge 'Outrageous Order'").

Of course, mounting this scale of legal crusade is extremely costly, a concern which, as we noted last week, was seemingly alleviated by a massive surge in contributions to the American Civil Liberties Union. According to the Washington Post, the lawsuits filed by the ACLU prompted a tidal wave of donations which totaled over $24 million in a single weekend, or roughly 6 times the organization's average annual donation tally.

Update: the @ACLU just ran the numbers again. Spokesman says the group received 356,306 online donations totaling $24,164,691 this weekend.

But raising that kind of money that quickly is difficult to do at $20 a pop. Which is why we weren't terribly surprised to see a note from LifeZette this morning confirming what is likely implicitly understood by most people already, namely that the lawsuits filed against Trump's immigration executive order largely stem from organizations bankrolled by billionaire leftist George Soros and Democratic state attorneys general.

According to LifeZette and the Capital Research Center, Soros's Open Society Institute has given over $35 million to the ACLU alone and millions more to other liberal organizations directly involved in filing lawsuits all around the country.

Outside of the politicians, the Soros’s Open Society Institute, which advocates for open borders, is financing several advocacy groups that initiated litigation against the order.

Leading the way in these lawsuits in several states is the American Civil Liberties Union, which has gotten at least $35.5 million from the Open Society Institute, according to the Capital Research Center, a Washington think tank that investigates nonprofits.

Soros also gave $4.6 million to the National Immigration Law Center, which has been involved in litigation, according to the CRC; and $621,000 to the Urban Justice Center, which has an appendage known as the International Refugee Assistance Project that has jumped into the lawsuits, according to CRC.

Of course, leading the charge of liberal state Attorney Generals in the crusade against Trump's immigration order is none other than NY AG Eric Schneiderman who was praised last August for his attacks against Trump by George Soros's son, Alex.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has carried out a political vendetta against Trump, led 15 other state attorneys general in a joint statement condemning what they called an “unconstitutional, un-American and unlawful the executive order.” The Democratic AGs also said, “Religious liberty has been, and always will be, a bedrock principle of our country and no president can change that truth,” a curious statement from the party that targeted the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Last August, George Soros’s son, Alex Soros, posted a picture of himself with Schneiderman on Instagram, and wrote, “Great to meet with #newyork attorney general @ericschneiderman who recognized that @realdonaldtrump was a fraud way before many and has courageously taken him on!”

With hundreds of millions of dollars poured into presidential and congressional elections in the United States it can be difficult, even for mega donors like George Soros, to truly understand how much influence is being "bought." That's why Soros is pursuing a new strategy to dump millions into the campaigns of local district attorneys, a position which "exercises the greatest discretion and power in the system." So far, Soros has funneled $3 million into seven local DA races over the past year but his support is "expected to intensify in the next few years, thanks to longer-term planning and candidate recruitment." In general, Soros looks to fund progressive DAs running on platforms to "reduce racial disparity in sentencing" and support prison "diversion programs" for drug offenders instead of trials that could result in jail time. As Politico points out:

Prosecutorial discretion gives district attorneys a huge say in the charges and sentences that defendants face. But reform efforts have not traditionally focused on harnessing that power.

“They are often a very invisible part of the criminal justice system and the political system,” said Brenda Carter, director of the Reflective Democracy Campaign, an arm of the progressive Women Donors Network. “Many people can’t name their district attorney. It’s not an office people think about a lot.”

Carter’s group commissioned research in 2015 that found that 95 percent of elected local prosecutors in the U.S. are white and three-quarters overall are white men. It also highlighted a Wake Forest University study that found that a vast majority of prosecutors — 85 percent — run for reelection unopposed.

“I found that to be shocking, and I think people are waking up to the untapped potential for intervention in these seats to really change the day-to-day realities of criminal justice,” Carter said. “It’s been really gratifying for us to see the research taken up and run with by different groups around the country.”

Of course, as Matthew Vadum, senior vice president of the CRC, notes, it should come a surprise to precisely zero people that George Soros's fingerprints are all over these latest anti-Trump lawsuits: “It shouldn't surprise anyone that pressure groups funded by George Soros are litigating to keep U.S. ports-of-entry wide open to terrorists and other people who hate America. Soros has said he wants to bring America down. Flooding the country with Muslim aliens who won't assimilate is one way to do that.”